Mobility in pastoral systems: Dynamic flux or downward trend?

Several interdependent strategies have allowed pastoralists to survive for centuries in patchy and unpredictable low-productivity environments while sustaining their resource base: mobility, diversity, flexibility, reciprocity and reserves. Recent decades have witnessed curtailed mobility due to agricultural expansion into rangelands, the establishment and enforcement of political and administrative boundaries, the usurpation of local institutional control and disruption of local practices, increased labour costs, and the development of stationary goods and services. Pastoralists have responded by becoming sedentary, diversifying or intensifying their production strategies, leaving the herding sector, or adapting and transforming their practices and institutions. While these trends may be significant, an historical precedence of ebbs and surges in mobility indicates they may not be new or unidirectional. Emerging political trends and technologies may provide an opportunity for pastoral populations to maintain or increase their mobility in the future, but will the customary pastoral institutions that support sustainable practices still be viable, or will new, viable institutions emerge? These institutions are often subtle, contextual, and norm-based; 'invisible' and easily dismantled or replaced by more authoritarian regimes. There is relatively little understanding of how they work or how to support them. Without them, the trend may be towards open access or privatization.     

Radionuclide concentrations in raw and purified phosphoric acids from Brazil and their processing wastes: implications for radiation exposures

Radionuclides from the U and Th natural series are present in alkaline rocks, which are used as feedstock in Brazil for the production of raw phosphoric acid, which can be considered as a NORM (naturally occurring radioactive material). As a result of the purification of raw phosphoric acid to food-grade phosphoric acid, two by-products are generated, i.e., solid and liquid wastes. Taking this into account, the main aim of this study was to evaluate the fluxes of natural radionuclide in the production of food-grade phosphoric acids in Brazil, to determine the radiological impact caused by ingestion of food-grade phosphoric acid, and to evaluate the solid waste environmental hazards caused by its application in crop soils. Radiological characterization of raw phosphoric acid, food-grade phosphoric acid, solid waste, and liquid waste was performed by alpha and gamma spectrometry. The ²³⁸U, ²³⁴U, ²²⁶Ra, and ²³²Th activity concentrations varied depending on the source of raw phosphoric acid. Decreasing radionuclides activity concentrations in raw phosphoric acids used by the producer of the purified phosphoric acid were observed as follows: Tapira (raw phosphoric acid D) > Catal?o (raw phosphoric acids B and C) > Cajati (raw phosphoric acid A). The industrial purification process produces a reduction in radionuclide activity concentrations in food-grade phosphoric acid in relation to raw phosphoric acid produced in plant D and single raw phosphoric acid used in recent years. The most common use of food-grade phosphoric acid is in cola soft drinks, with an average consumption in Brazil of 72 l per person per year. Each liter of cola soft drink contains 0.5 ml of food-grade phosphoric acid, which gives an annual average intake of 36 ml of food-grade phosphoric acid per person. Under these conditions, radionuclide intake through consumption of food-grade phosphoric acid per year per person via cola soft drinks is not hazardous to human health in Brazil. Considering these annual additions of ²³⁸U, ²²⁶Ra, ²³²Th and ⁴⁰K, and since these radionuclide should be homogeneously distributed in the upper 10 cm of soils with an assumed apparent density of 1.5 g/cm³, a maximum increase of 0.19 ± 0.03 Bq kg⁻¹ of soil is expected for ²³⁸U and ²³⁴U. Thus, the addition of solid waste as phosphate fertilizers to Brazilian agricultural soils does not represent a hazard to the ecosystem or to human health.     

Antibiotic resistance patterns of Salmonella and Escherichia coli in the groundwater of Cyprus

In addition to diet-based vectors of disease, the contribution of water-borne zoonotic agents to gastrointestinal illnesses may be significant, but this has yet to be investigated for Cyprus. Our main objective was to evaluate antibiotic resistance patterns of Salmonella and Escherichia coli in groundwater samples collected at confined animal feeding operations. This is the first report on the occurrence of antibiotic-resistant Salmonella and E. coli strains in the groundwater of Cyprus. Most of Salmonella isolates belonged to the subgroup enterica, whereas none of the E. coli isolates expressed the verotoxin-encoding gene. Out of 27 isolated Salmonella strains, nearly half of them were resistant to at least one or more antibiotic, whereas the highest resistance was exhibited by sulphamethoxazole (85%), followed by streptomycin (39%), and tetracycline (31%). For the E. coli isolates, nearly a third of them showed resistance to at least one antibiotic, whereas the selection of antibiotic resistance was equal among sulphamethoxazole, tetracycline and streptomycin (20%). This study demonstrated that Salmonella and E. coli in groundwater could pose a public health risk via oral ingestion of contaminated water. Best management practices are needed for overexploited groundwater supplies of rural areas, minimizing human exposure to antibiotic-resistant pathogens.     

Linking male qualities to multiple display traits: an example in a fish with exclusive male care

Recent theoretical models predict that the relative allocation to advertisement and parental care depends on whether paternal care is necessary for offspring survival: In species with exclusive male care, male investment in attraction is expected to reliably indicate paternal care effort and male phenotypic quality. Previous research, yielding contrasting results, has considered how one trait involved in mate attraction interacts with parental care or a specific aspect of male quality. In the blenny Salaria pavo, we perform a comprehensive analysis of the interplay between overall male attractiveness and male quality, the latter in terms of fertility, condition, and parental care. In this fish, males are larger than females, exhibit two sexually dimorphic traits (head crest and anal glands), and solely care for eggs. We generated a male attractiveness index through principal component analyses of morphological traits and quantified parental effort as the total time spent in egg care. In addition, we analyzed the relationships between specific components of attractiveness and male qualities. In agreement with theory predictions, we found that male overall attractiveness is a reliable indicator of fertility, in terms of sperm number, but is unrelated to body condition and parental care effort, with males able to perform high levels of care regardless of their level of advertisement. However, the relative expression of head crest area appears positively related to sperm number but is traded-off with parental care effort. These findings underline the need, in addressing real patterns, to consider interactions between multiple aspects of male display and quality.     

Application to the Port of Sines of a new tool for risk assessment in port navigation

This paper describes a first approach on the risk assessment in port navigation using GUIOMAR, an integrated system for port and coastal engineering modelling developed at the National Civil Engineering Laboratory (LNEC), Portugal, using a GIS software environment. A set of automatic procedures was designed to include a new methodology based on the amplitude of the wave-induced vertical movement of a ship along its trajectory. In this methodology, the risk in port navigation is assessed on the basis of a combination of the probability of exceedance of a pre-set threshold for the ship??s vertical movements and its consequences. To test the new procedures, a set of sea wave records obtained at the Sines wave-buoy from 1988 to 2002 was transferred into Sines Port using two numerical models of sea wave propagation and deformation (SWAN and DREAMS), included in the GUIOMAR system. The numerical model WAMIT was used for estimating the wave-induced ship??s vertical movements inside the port. By applying the new procedures, automatic generation of risk maps was carried out for navigation in the vicinity of the West breakwater of the Port of Sines. The recent developments contribute towards a more versatile and efficient GUIOMAR system, which results in a more adequate tool to support decision-making processes in port and coastal management.     

Genes and song: genetic and social connections in fragmented habitat in a woodland bird with limited dispersal

Understanding the processes leading to population declines in fragmented landscapes is essential for successful conservation management. However, isolating the influence of disparate processes, and dispersal in particular, is challenging. The Grey Shrike-thrush, Colluricincla harmonica, is a sedentary woodland-dependent songbird, with learned vocalizations whose incidence in suitable habitat patches falls disproportionally with decline in tree cover in the landscape. Although it has been suggested that gaps in tree cover might act as barriers to its dispersal, the species remains in many remnants of native vegetation in agricultural landscapes, suggesting that it may have responded to habitat removal and fragmentation by maintaining or even increasing dispersal distances. We quantified population connectivity of the Grey Shrike-thrush in a system fragmented over more than 120 years using genetic (microsatellites) and acoustic (song types) data. First, we tested for population genetic and acoustic structure at regional and local scales in search of barriers to dispersal or gene flow and signals of local spatial structuring indicative of restricted dispersal or localized acoustic similarity. Then we tested for effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on genetic and acoustic connectivity by fitting alternative models of mobility (isolation-by-distance [the null model] and reduced and increased movement models) across treeless vs. treed areas. Birds within -5 km of each other had more similar genotypes and song types than those farther away, suggesting that dispersal and song matching are limited in the region. Despite restricted dispersal detected for females (but not males), populations appeared to be connected by gene flow and displayed some cultural (acoustic) connectivity across the region. Fragmentation did not appear to impact greatly the dispersal of the Grey Shrike-thrush: none of the mobility models fit the genetic distances of males, whereas for females, an isolation-by-distance model could not be rejected in favor of the models of reduced or increased movement through treeless gaps. However, dissimilarities of the song types were more consistent with the model of reduced cultural connectivity through treeless areas, suggesting that fragmentation impedes song type sharing in the Grey Shrike-thrush. Our paper demonstrates that habitat fragmentation hinders important population processes in an Australian woodland bird even though its dispersal is not detectably impacted.     

Active Biodegradable Cassava Starch Films Containing Sophorolipids Produced by Starmerella bombicola ATCC® 22214™

Journal of Polymers and the Environment - Sophorolipids are glycolipid biosurfactants produced by the yeast Starmerella bombicola. They have great potential for application in the food industry due...     

Near-miss management systems: A methodological comparison

A close relationship between near-miss events and major accidents has been demonstrated in major hazard facilities: a near-miss and an accident have often common causes. A near-miss could be defined as a hazardous condition where the event sequence could lead to an accident if it had not been interrupted. An effective Near-miss Management System (NMS) aims to quickly recognize signals from the operational fields in order to apply prevention strategies. As a standard reference model has not yet been developed, the NMS design represents a complex issue. The present paper proposes a critical comparison between two methodologies which could be applied for a near-miss event assessment: a matrix and an index based method. The purpose is to evaluate potentiality and pitfalls of their application as their global efficiency could influence the whole performance of the whole NMS design. An application in a test case of a chemical plant is proposed: results obtained have proved useful in supporting safety management in an effective design of a NMS.     

General and specific measures in organizational behavior research: Considerations,examples, and recommendations for researchers

Deliberation over and relative preference for general or specific (broad or narrow) constructs has long been an important issue in organizational behavior research. In this article, we provide a review of this general issue and some specific recommendations for researchers. We begin by discussing whether the general versus specific issue is an important debate and by discussing other underlying issues (the role of researcher preferences, distinction between reflective and formative indicators, and distinction between constructs and measures of constructs). Building on Chen's (this issue) analysis of core self‐evaluations, we first discuss how the general–specific debate has progressed in core self‐evaluations research. We then discuss three other important areas in which this debate has played out: intelligence, five‐factor model of personality, and job attitudes. Finally, we offer a framework to help guide decisions about whether to utilize general measures, specific measures, or both and conclude by providing recommendations for the use of general and specific measures in organizational behavior research. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Crafting a job on a daily basis: Contextual correlates and the link to work engagement

This study focused on daily job crafting and explored its contextual determinants and one motivational outcome (i.e., work engagement). Job crafting was conceptualized as “seeking resources,” “seeking challenges,” and “reducing demands.” Participants were 95 employees from several organizations who completed a 5‐day diary survey. As hypothesized, we found a 3‐factor structure for the job crafting instrument, both at the general and day levels. We hypothesized and found that the combination of high day‐level work pressure and high day‐level autonomy (active jobs) was associated with higher day‐level seeking resources and lower day‐level reducing demands. Furthermore, we found that day‐level seeking challenges (but not resources) was positively associated with day‐level work engagement, whereas day‐level reducing demands was negatively associated with day‐level work engagement. Findings suggest that job crafting is a daily employee behavior with implications for management practice and future research. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.